Friday lunch was always fish with beetroot. Surprisingly palatable. Far better than Thursdays when they were presented with a mess of stew that the boys delighted in creating vulgar names for. The gravy, however, was edible. Even the posh girl thought so and Helen had watched in wonder as with enviable elegance, the girl had taken a piece of bread, broken it, mopped up the gravy goo and sucked it into her pouty mouth. This was when Helen had learned a valuable lesson. That you could get away with anything if you did it with as much grace and style as you could muster.
‘You look very serious,’ Noel said, on Hungerford Bridge. ‘What is the Helen Brook Thought for Today?’
‘I was – I was just thinking about those men at the soup kitchen. And how – I know this sounds awful Noel, but it’s true, isn’t it. I mean poverty. It has a smell. A very offensive smell.’
They were approaching the man playing the tenor sax. Automatically, Helen reached into her coat pocket for the loose change she always carried, to give away.
Noel hustled her past the musician. ‘Don’t be such a fool, Helen. You give him money and you know where it’s going to end up. Down his throat or up his nose. You know that!’
She shrugged him off, marched up to the musician and threw some coins into his open saxophone case. He grinned at her and winked.
Helen hated men who winked. It was as over-familiar as being called ‘dear’ by a perfect stranger, or enduring a kiss on the mouth from a friend’s husband you were meeting for the very first time.
Furious, she rounded on Noel. ‘Why shouldn’t I give him a few quid? I earn it, I can fucking well spend it as I like.’
Noel’s tone was smugly soothing. ‘You know, Helen, you like to think of yourself as a self-contained, in-control person. Legging it to work, weaving your way down back-doubles to avoid all that heave of commuters. Immaculate typing and strict Nanny to naughty boy learner lawyers trying to wind you up.’
‘Stop sneering at my job, Noel. I’m trusted with top-level confidential documents. I don’t spend my time wheeling vulnerable people to operations like you and you feel superior because you know damn well they’re afraid so you get off on them gazing at you gratefully.’
As usual, Noel barged verbally on. ‘And then, Ladies and Gentlemen, we present Friday Nights, starring the one, the only Helen Brook. Well we all know what you get up to Fridays. You’re just bloody fortunate you haven’t picked the wrong guy and got beaten up.’
‘And you’re bloody fortunate you haven’t got Aids. But presumably, working in a hospital, you’ve got access to secret drugs.’
‘What you don’t seem to have access to, Helen, is your inner soul. Your own you. Because, I can tell you, deep down you’re hopelessly soggy. You’ve lived in the same place, done the same job, really, since you left school. How adventurous is that? Why don’t you try jumping off the cliff sometime? I assure you, if you had the nerve, you’d find a mossy bank to land on.’
Right, that’s it, Helen was hot with fury in the freezing night air. I am not inviting you in, and you are not spending the night on my sofa. You can bloody walk back to Tooting.
Apparently unaware of the ticking bomb he was walking beside, Noel said thoughtfully, ‘You know, I could have been wrong about that musician. I mean, they don’t all piss money up against the wall. There was one guy, god knows how he did it, but he managed to save enough for a deposit on his own place.’
‘Did he get it?’
‘No. He was run over. Died in hospital. I was with him.’
They reached her flat. They went inside, and had turkey sandwiches.
*
Jean-Paul arrived at 5.15 on the 26th. He had brought chilled champagne, which they drank in bed. He was a delightfully accomplished lover, she realised. Generous, but he knew what he wanted, and how to get it. She did have a slight problem, not being able to remember his sexual preferences, but she covered this up with a lot of ecstatic intakes of breath and inviting lip-licking. She had never yet met a man who didn’t like a woman running the tip of her tongue around her mouth.
Helene was aware that had she been with the girls’ lunch gang, or Noel, she would have expressed this more vehemently.
‘Fucking hell! I was drunk as a skunk that first night with him. I’d had three double whiskies in the pub and then he chose a zonking claret. In the lift going to his room, I was lurching about. Pretended I was dilly of lifts. But if I’d been on my own, getting home in a taxi, I’d probably have fallen out. D’you remember that killing Dawn French sketch in Ab Fab, when she fell out of the taxi and rolled down the road?’
The girls would howl. It was a classic TV comedy moment and one they all identified with. It could have happened to me. It didn’t, but it easily could have.
But Helene wasn’t with the girls. She was in bed with Jean-Paul and was conscious that, chameleon-like, she tended to take on the protective cover, the verbal guise of the man she was with. Hilly thought this was perfectly normal, pointing out that husbands and wives often talked alike, and finished one another’s sentences.
In Helene’s opinion, Jean-Paul was not an overtly passionate man. He was no smash-and-grab merchant. In bed, he was considerate and subtle, and the formality of his language reflected this. Helene shadowed it. Because she knew, from experience, that her good-tempered compliance (coupled with a certain degree of supple athleticism) would resonate with him.
They relaxed against the pillows to finish the bubbles.
‘You weren’t too lonely yesterday, Helene?’
She didn’t think it sounded particularly stylish to say she’d slobbed about picking at roast chicken, getting tipsy and demolishing an entire box of chocolates. ‘I had a very lazy day. But I’m sorry. I’ve no food to give you. I ate it all yesterday.’
‘No, no. There is never any need for you to cook for me. I eat well at home. And I would like to take you out.’
‘Actually, I like to cook.’ She hoped he wasn’t one of those Frenchmen who fell into a foaming lather at the mention of Yorkshire pudding.
‘I am sure your cuisine is superb, Helene. But you see, if I take you out, I can show you off.’
‘What if your wife sees us?’
He looked faintly astounded. ‘Madame never comes to the Left Bank.’
Helene got up to shower and dress for dinner. A well-cut black jersey dress and her hair held in a knot of curls on top.
‘Ah yes,’ smiled Jean-Paul. ‘You were wearing your hair like that the first time I saw you.’
She was spraying on scent and thought, well, well. How interesting. Because by the time you arrived at my table in the Red Lion, I had taken my hair down. So how long, I wonder, had you been clocking me?
As they left the building Jean-Paul told her that tonight he would show her the tourist places. ‘And then, as time goes on, we may find our own special bar, our own restaurant.’
But I’m only here for a few weeks, Helene thought, unbuttoning her pink coat as he escorted her into Deux Magots.
Immediately, and excitingly, she felt surrounded, if not by ghosts, then influential literary presences from the past. Hemingway, Sartre, de Beauvoir, they had all written here, argued here, got drunk here. Hemingway, needing to show off his manly rigour, used to write standing up, but if anyone enquired, ‘How’s it going, Ern?’ he would round on them and shout. It made Helene feel all she had to do was buy a notebook, order a drink, scribble away and immediately she would be swept into a world of literary fascination.
What would it be like to be a writer? The only one she knew was Noreen, one of her London Saturday lunch gang. Noreen wrote what was politely called erotic fiction, more commonly referred to as clit-lit.
Noreen’s Hampstead study was lined with Post-it notes, each bearing one word on the same theme. ‘The difficultly,’ Noreen told them, ‘is what you call IT. You can’t say Willy. It’s not sexy. Penis is too clinical. Todger rhymes with bodger. Dick implies dick-head. So really you’re stuck with cock.’
&n
bsp; Helen was studying the writing on the wall. ‘What’s this? Enormity?’
‘Oh yes,’ Noreen said seriously, ‘He would have to be an Arab.’
One of the girls asked, ‘Have you really made money at this?’
‘Sure. Shed-loads.’
Her apartment testified to that. Huge rooms, interior designed by fashionable Nina Campbell and two minutes from the Heath. Thinking about her friend Noel’s activities on the Heath, Helen asked, ‘Is there erotic fiction for gay men?’
‘Of course. But it’s not all cottaging in some fly-infested public bog. It’s not that explicit. There’s lots of frolicking in the sea ending with wonderful lines like: And love’s call was answered.’
‘Helene! You’re miles away. What are you laughing at?’
She told Jean-Paul.
‘This Noel. What sort of gay is he?’
‘Oh, you wouldn’t know he was gay. He doesn’t mince or speak in a camp way. But, like most of them, he’s great fun and easy to talk to. I must admit – ‘ she was going to say, We do argue a lot, but murmured instead, ‘I find him easy company.’
Helene and Jean-Paul had one drink and then they crossed the road to Brasserie Lipp which for decades had fed the famous.
After dinner in the elegant wood and glass restaurant, Jean-Paul ordered cognacs. ‘Tell me, Helene. That night I met you. How would you have spent your evening?’
Helene excused herself and went to the ladies’. She needed to think this one through. Clearly, her cover story of a trip to the movies was not going to wash. Jean-Paul had been watching her at the Red Lion. He had probably spotted that she’d taken her dull blouse off, and had adjusted her saucy cerise bra so you could just catch a glimpse of the sequins on the straps.
And then, Helene’s thoughts ran on, he knows there’s no serious relationship in my life. Yet earlier this evening I demonstrated, most convincingly, that I’m not exactly a sexual novice.
She sauntered back to the table, enjoying the appreciative glances of the male diners. That was so seductive about French men. They weren’t leering or lascivious and they did not, like many Englishmen, make you feel they’d be more comfortable if you were a Labrador. No, they just gave a woman the confident impression that by looking good, she had brightened their day.
Helene sat down, took a lusty slug of her cognac and told Jean-Paul what she had rarely told anyone. About what she thought of as her Friday night Life of Crime.
He listened without comment. Then:
‘I can understand why you wanted these men. You’re a sexy woman. You have healthy needs. But have you never wanted a serious relationship? Marriage? I mean, I cannot imagine my life without Madame and my son.’
‘I’m no good at long term relationships,’ Helene said, rather crossly. ‘My father walked out on us when I was 14 and I’ve never trusted since.’
‘You don’t trust men?’
‘I don’t trust myself. My tendency is to walk out before I get chucked out or left.’
He ordered two more cognacs. Helene started to relax. She’d told him. He hadn’t freaked. The brandy was heading for the table. Now she really was beginning to feel like someone in a Jean Rhys novel.
‘You see, you’d be all right with me,’ Jean-Paul was saying. ‘I’m married. I have no intention of being unmarried. But I would very much value your company for a few evenings a week … if you would agree to stay on in Paris.’
She was, Helene realised, being offered a deal.
At eleven the next morning, he arrived at her apartment with chilled champagne. They sat by the window, at her table. Jean-Paul was businesslike and, as usual, clear about what was on offer, what was not, and what was expected from her. Basically, the deal ran like this:
Helene could live in the apartment rent free. Jean-Paul would have a phone put in, would pay all the bills and give her a generous allowance for her expenses. He would like to see her three times a week. He would not stay the night. He would not be available at weekends because he and Madame always went to their country home in Chantilly.
He was so sure-footed, Helene had to wonder, has he done this before? Pointless asking, she knew. He would regard the question as crass and even if he’d had a dozen mistresses, he would be too polite to let on.
Helene learned that when she was not with Jean-Paul, she was perfectly free to take other lovers, to continue her Life of Crime if she wished. What she must understand, over and above everything else, was that his family would always come first, and he would never leave Madame.
And Helene knew she could never tell her twin any of this. Helen flinched at the prospect of missives majoring on self respect – lack of, self loathing and what on earth is mum going to say?
Their mother worked in a souvenir shop on the south coast and was in charge of the flower roster at her local church.
‘She’s on a cruise at the moment, but usually I phone my mother on Sundays,’ Helene told Jean-Paul. ‘She tends to run on. It might get a bit expensive.’
‘I would expect you not to neglect your mother. Oh, and I must remember. As a technicality, the phone must be in your name. In France, if you can’t produce a utility bill, you do not exist.’
That afternoon, he escorted her to his local bank, introduced her to the manager and arranged a cheque account, a carte bleue credit card and a safe deposit box.
‘Jean-Paul, I don’t actually own a tiara.’
‘Everyone has personal papers that need to be secure.’
Helene had no idea that being a mistress was such a business. She’d always imagined the job just involved drawerfuls of tempting lingerie and acres of free time to paint your toenails scarlet. Even so, Jean-Paul’s pragmatic approach rather appealed to her.
What didn’t appeal was their final port of call. His Galerie in rue Beaux Arts. It was called Galerie des Oiseaux and was devoted to objets, paintings, sculptures all involving birds. Helene didn’t like birds. They had fleas, they shat on your window and you couldn’t cuddle them.
Helene walked round the shop and just didn’t know what to say. She hated everything, especially the sporting prints showing chickens being eyed -up by a fox.
The manager, a middle-aged man in a suit that was a tad too snug, was regarding her with patronising amusement. To avoid him she paused by a sculpture, allegedly of terns perched on a piece of painted driftwood. The publicity leaflet informed her that the artist had employed a corroded stair rod to suggest the tern’s legs and that the birds represented ‘symbols of wild places and the yearning human need to reconnect with wilderness.’
Helene had a yearning human need to strip off all her clothes and run screaming down the street, but Jean-Paul hurried her into the back of the Galerie, to a room containing a safe, a velvet covered table and a gilt chair. He motioned her to sit, and punched in the safe combination.
‘I didn’t get you a Christmas present, Helene. So I want you to have this.’
He laid on the velvet covered table, a brooch. A solid gold swan.
‘When you wear black you must always wear gold. Otherwise black can look dowdy.’
Helene fingered the swan and and had to stop herself bursting out laughing. Jump off the cliff you said, Noel. Wait till you hear I’ve crash-landed as a kept woman!
*
It was going to take some getting used to. In London, she’d taken pride in her role as independent girl-about-town. She had a good job, and she knew her city, the ‘villages’ that gave the capital its unique character. Covent Garden, where she lived, vibrant with street performers. Fashionable Notting Hill and the Portobello Road market where you could still find a bargain in vintage clothes. The East End, a stroll with Noel down the Columbia Road flower market and stopping off at the jellied eel stall …or a walk on Sunday through the pretty elegance of St James’s park, her favourite, to the stuccoed grandeur of Belgravia, the streets eerily deserted on the weekend.
Now here she was in Paris. Why?
Normally, Helene’s ra
re bouts of restless depression were easily assuaged with a new lipstick, some salsa-dancing lessons or a weekend trip to Brighton with Noel.
But, like many people, Helene had always had a hankering to live in Paris. Even if, like Helene, you’d only been there once, on a student stipend, you felt you knew Paris from books and films. Okay, France was a foreign country but it seemed familiar.
So when Jean-Paul had made his offer, it was too seductive for Helene to turn down. She had no ties in London. Yes, she knew she would miss her girlfriends, and Sunday lunch with Noel along with whatever he’d picked up at a club called Heaven the night before. The last pretty boy had introduced himself to her as a ‘visual display artist.’
Noel had rolled his eyes. ‘He means he’s a window dresser.’
She’d miss her family. They didn’t get together that often, but when they did, they got along fine. No raving and shouting like you saw on TV soaps. She reserved the ranting for Noel, when he was goading her.
Helene had to admit that, deep down, she envied Hilly her stable life. Okay, Hilly had people to put up with. The dragon. Then Megan. A child monster, but at least she was interesting. And Olly. Dull, oh dull, but perhaps that went with the territory of his job. As an accountant, he could hardly turn up to a meeting flaunting a floral shirt.
On the other hand, Hilly had Honeysuckle House, a husband, a daughter, a structure. Sausages and chips on Saturdays, church on Sundays, the egg on spoon race at school sports day. It was all mapped out. It was safe. And ever since, Helene realised, ever since Dad left, I’ve never felt really safe.
Defiant, yes. Look at me, see me get a job, a flat, a London life and getting laid on Fridays. I had a reliable income, friends, a fulfilling life.
But I never felt safe. Was that a knockback from her father?
And, the question had to be asked, was his gene coming through in her? The irresponsible gene. Helene was horribly aware that she had no money. In London she had cheerfully spent what she earned, bought countless presents for family and friends, paid her rent bang on time.
The Price of Love Page 3